LightSquared vs. GPS

A new wireless start-up with Minnesota connections has been in the news lately with plans to provide a unique wireless-satellite communications network that could bring ubiquitous broadband coverage to rural America for a fraction of the cost of existing, limited service.  The issue?  The new LightSquared network threatens to overwhelm America’s Global Position System (GPS) receivers, making the devices obsolete.

The Company and the Technology

Reston, Virginia-based LightSquared Subsidiary LLC was formed in 2010 with plans to provide a wholesale, nation-wide 4G-LTE wireless broadband network with integrated satellite coverage.  The new service is built on spectrum used by two Mobile Satellite Service(MSS) sat-phone companies Inmarsat and SkyTerra, and has announced a significant network partnership with Sprint-Nextel.  Forbes magazine reports that the company invested $50 million to develop new microchips to provide dual-mode wireless at a price below existing cellular service.  By avoiding costs of supporting legacy voice networks, LightSquared projects to wholesale 1 gigabyte data service for about $7, compared to the $50-$60 typically charged retail 3G/4G customers today.

In January 2011, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued an Order giving LightSquared conditional approval to build out a ground-based wireless network using its MSS spectrum.  However, that order was subject to further testing and FCC review due to potential GPS interference.

The Issue with GPS

The federal Space-Based Positioning, Navigation & Timing (PNT) Committee has been examining potential interference by the LightSquared network with GPS receivers.  They state the issue:

The base stations of the LightSquared network will transmit signals in a radio band immediately adjacent to the GPS frequencies. The GPS community is concerned because testing has shown that LightSquared’s ground-based transmissions overpower the relatively weak GPS signal from space. Although LightSquared will operate in its own radio band, that band is so close to the GPS signals that most GPS devices pick up the stronger LightSquared signal and become overloaded or jammed.

There is also concern that the FCC may approve a technical solution to the problem that requires millions of existing GPS users to upgrade or replace their devices…

The results [of PNT testing] clearly demonstrate that implementing LightSquared’s planned deployment for terrestrial operations poses a significant potential for harmful interference to GPS services.

There are basically two technical issues.  First GPS signals are very weak—satellites are 12,000 miles above the Earth and operate on solar power—so receivers have been designed to be sensitive to the full GPS spectrum.  This, however, means many GPS receivers also pick up adjacent frequencies.  Second, LightSquared proposes to change weaker satellite signals in adjacent spectrum to much stronger ground-based 4G wireless signals, exacerbating interference.  Further federal testing results, leaked in December, confirm interference with 75% of general purpose GPS receivers;  however, no “significant interference” was found with cellular phones.  The NTIA will next test high-precision receivers used in farm equipment and scientific instruments.

Different groups have suggested different ways to eliminate conflicts.  (The Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGEO) Emergency Preparedness Committee has tracked the evolving issue on their blog.)  LightSquared’s position is that GPS makers were aware of potential interference and should have built better technology.  The company has petitioned the FCC to re-affirm their spectrum license.  LightSquared has also offered to limit initial use of spectrum closest to GPS signals and delay boosting power on ground stations.

Opponents, including The Coalition to Save our GPS, contend that LightSquared is causing the problem by changing from low-powered satellite service with limited ground stations to high-powered ground-based service.  Members of the coalition include GPS makers; agricultural equipment manufacturers such as AGCO, Case New Holland, Caterpillar, and Deere & Company; and national organizations including the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, among many others.  .

The Issue with Politics

Many media sources have touched on multiple political issues involved in the LightSquared proposal.  Philip Falcone, a native of Minnesota’s Iron Range, acquired control of the company through Harbinger Capital, his New York hedge fund that is now being investigated by the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski have feuded through the year on Congressional oversight in the matter.  The FCC’s National Broadband Plan specifically calls for accelerating terrestrial deployment of MSS frequencies.  Questions have, however, been raised about why FCC approval was granted to LightSquared prior to testing, and also about a report that General William Shelton was pressured by the White House to change testimony to Congress in favor of LightSquared.  Grassley placed holds in December on two nominees to the FCC over the issue.

LightSquared has also touted support where it doesn’t seem to be clear.  For example, a September press release stated that “we received a strong endorsement of our view that LightSquared and GPS can co-exist from several of the country’s leading agricultural organizations…” including the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) and National Farmers Union.  However, far from endorsing the proposal, the letter referenced supports both rural broadband and precision agriculture.  In testimony to the House Committee on Small Business, AFBF President Bob Stallman urged Congress to assure that “LightSquared should cover the expense of all technical fixes to the interference issue.”

-John C. Shepard, AICP

Note:  No endorsement of a particular political position is intended or implied

Executive Summary -

The plan is to move to the Connect American Fund (CAF) which will allocate a $4.5 billion budget annually for rural, insular and hard cost areas.

One the transition is complete that will mean up to $2 billion for rate of areas with return carriers; $2.8 billion for price cap carriers; $500 million for wireless and mobile voice services – including up to $100 million for tribal areas and at least $100 million for remote areas fund.

CAF recipients will be required to send reports to state and federal overseers. The State Commissions will work with carriers of last resort and ETCs (eligible telecommunications carriers).

Price cap – CAF will support broadband in two phases:

• Legacy cost support will be frozen & subject to broadband obligations ($300 million to commit broadband deployment to areas)
• Creates a framework to provide support on forward looking price model. Incumbents will need to overtake statewide commitment (Except very high cost areas and areas with competitors). When incumbents says no – there will be a bidding mechanism for all ETCs)

Rate of return

• Changes rules to support continued broadband deployment/investment
• Allows them predictability of continued funding but requires more stringent monitoring
• Looks to reduce interstate compensation 11.25%

Mobile

• Eliminates identical support rule
• Phases down existing support

More on mobile

• Phase I $300 million and $50 million in tribal areas and reverse auctions with a goal of 4G
• Phase II $500 million per year to extend and support mobile networks ($100 million to tribal areas) in high costs areas

ICC

• Arbitrage – combating phantom traffic
• Billing key methodology for all ICT traffic with unified national framework
• Caps all interstate and most intrastate effective on date of this order and establishes a transition path for the reduction
• Some carriers will be eligible to receive cap support
• VoIP/PSTN – will be subject to transitional ICC; will be considered equal; expect all carriers to act in good faith for IP calls

Copps Comments:

Re: USF

• I would have much preferred a higher budget for the Fund—a budget that I believe consumers would accept because of its importance to putting the nation back to work and providing our kids with the tools they need for their futures.
• The course we adopt today has two auction phases, with the second installment of mobility support dependent upon further Commission decision-making. Understanding the need for maximum predictability throughout these transitions, we will halt reductions in legacy support if for some unlikely and unanticipated reason the second auction phase does not take place as planned.

Re:ICC

• My enthusiasm here is tempered by the fact that end-user charges (under the label of “Access Recovery Charges”) are allowed to increase, albeit incrementally, for residential consumers.
• While I understand the need for predictability in an ICC regime, I am pleased that my colleagues have retained a key role for states, including arbitrating interconnection agreements; monitoring intrastate access tariffs during the transition to bill-and-keep; and helping to implement our Universal Service Fund as well as, in many cases, their own state universal service funds.
• There is inherent inequity in a system that funds the deployment of broadband off of assessments on interstate telephony. Once we ensure that double, triple and quadruple play services that benefit from Universal Service bear their fair share, we will not be subject to the unnecessary financial constraints that our current approach imposes. We also need
• spectrum management decisions that avoid putting still more spectrum in too few hands. Among other good results, that would drive better mobility auctions.

McDowell Comments 

• Also, today we are only addressing the high cost program of the distribution side of the Universal Service Fund. We are not addressing the entire Universal Service Fund, which currently distributes over $8 billion per year. To put that figure in context, USF is larger than the annual revenues of Major League Baseball. In separate proceedings, we will also reform the other USF spending programs. I cannot stress enough that all of the fiscal efficiencies that we will realize in the wake of today’s reforms will be lost if similar fiscal discipline is not applied to all Universal Service programs as well.
• It is no secret that for years I have been pushing for contribution reform to be carried out at the same time as distribution reform. Obviously, that is not happening today; therefore we must act quickly. The contribution factor, a type of tax paid by consumers, has risen each year from approximately 5.5 percent in 1998 to an estimated 15.3 percent in the fourth quarter of this year. This trend is unacceptable.

Clyburn Comments

• As you all know, I have a deep connection to rural America. Without comparable modern communications services enjoyed by their urban counterparts, those citizens will never adequately compete in our global economy. They need and deserve reliable fixed as well as mobile broadband in order to thrive. Without this critical broadband infrastructure, rural Americans would be forever left behind.
• Most importantly, we have provided for replacement funding as intrastate access rates decline as a result of our reform which relieves the financial burden that would have been on states in their own attempts at reform. To that end, we also have carefully balanced ICC revenue replacement for providers, with the important goal of not burdening consumers with significant increases in their bills or overburdening the USF which is ultimately paid for by consumers.
• Although the reforms we adopt today are extremely important for ensuring that basic and advanced communications services are physically available to all Americans, those services cannot be
• truly available, if consumers cannot afford to purchase them, the devices they need to access them are not available, or if they cannot obtain the skills they need to know how to use these services. I appreciate those who have called for us to address these consumer needs today, and I agree with you that we need to do more in this area. Our broadband adoption task force is working diligently to find solutions to these issues, and I fully expect that we soon will be addressing the proposal in our Lifeline proceeding to adopt pilot projects for broadband adoption to benefit low-income Americans who qualify for the Lifeline program.

Genachowsi Comments

• Over the next year, the Connect America Fund will bring broadband to more than 600,000 Americans who wouldn’t have it otherwise. Over the following five years, millions more rural families will be connected. And today’s Order puts us on the path to get broadband to every American by the end of the decade – to close the broadband deployment gap which now stands at close to twenty million Americans. We are also extending the benefits of mobile broadband coverage to tens of thousands of unserved road-miles, areas where millions of Americans work, live, and travel.
• Today’s action will help connect anchor institutions, which can play a vital role – for example, in expanding basic digital literacy training – in a world where broadband skills are necessary to find and land jobs.
• We did not rubber stamp or adopt wholesale the proposals of any stakeholder or group of stakeholders. Instead, we made our decisions on what’s right for the American people and our economy based on facts and data gathered in one of the most extensive records in FCC history, including hearings and workshops across the country, and more than 2,700 substantive comments totaling tens of thousands of pages.

The US Broadband plan establishes a 4 Mb goal for those lacking access to networks meeting the 100 Mb goal. Many assume that this goal will be met with mobile broadband networks. Will this be adequate to participate in today’s bandwidth intensive world?

Join LightSquared’s Geoff Stearn, VP of Spectrum Development, and Bob Bass from ATT to explore this question.

A lot of people have been asking questions about LightSquared; this could be a very interesting session. Please register – and bring your questions!

The webinar is part of the pre-conference series leading up to the Fall broadband conference: Policy & Progress: Border to Border Broadband.

It was a nice complement to the public hearing session hosted by the same groups last year. Last year Commissioner Copps and Commissioner Clyburn listened for *hours* as folks share their news, views and stories. It was an amazing turnout!

This meeting was a much smaller group and the topics were narrower in scope but included diversity in media ownership and representation, Low Powered FM Radio and policies to promote greater use of technology (broadband, telephone, radio) such as Net Neutrality and Universal Service Funds.

Commissioner Copps was generous to allow me to record the session. I didn’t catch the intros, because I wasn’t sure that everyone wanted to be archived – but I think his comments drew upon the remarks from the folks in the room.

I also took some very quick notes on the comments that just stuck out for me. So for a very high-level Reader’s Digest version I will include those notes below. Commissioner Copps will be done with his tenure at the FCC at the end of the year. I got the feeling that he was imparting some good advice on his way out to help community leaders work with the FCC in the future – and maybe to push the FCC to work harder. His key tip – Get Organized to Effect Change!

On Broadcasting & Access to Info

27 states don’t have local reporters in DC

Good journalism came from a time when journalists and owners remembered that there was an FCC that could penalize them for not doing good job.

Civic dialog can’t blossom without access to information.

Net Neutrality prevents the “cable-ization” of the Internet. We set guidelines. Now broadcasters don’t need to apply as often and the renewal is assumed – because generally renewal is a forgone conclusion.

Broadband

We recognize that we need a strategy and a plan to get broadband to rural areas. Everybody has to have access to broadband.

The USF is broken. And is costing consumers millions. The subscriber line fees might go up – but Copps won’t vote unless I know that the burden on the consumers will be reduced.

Universal access is the infrastructure challenge of the 21st century. We need to get it right.

Lifelink and Linkup will get attention in a month or so.

We found ways to build infrastructure in the past – with public/private sector collaboration. But then there was an idea (starting with Regan) that public-private collaboration was un-American.

Auction selling spectrum – one worry is the constriction of spectrum.

These problems get solved from the bottom up.

Three important steps to take:

• Access to Anchor Institutions
• Media/Digital/News Literacy
• Public Media & Support for Public Media

The Center for Science, Technology, and Public Policy (CSTPP) will host a lecture featuring two very different views about possible mergers in telecommunications giants AT&T and T-Mobile from 2 to 3:30 p.m. on Monday, October 3, in the Wilkins Room (Room 215) at the Humphrey School. Former Congressman Rick Boucher, now a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Sidley Austin, and amalia delony, grassroots director for the Center for Media Justice will discuss their differing views of the proposed merger and take questions from the audience. Steve Kelley, director of CSTPP, will moderate the discussion.

It was an interesting discussion in many ways because the two main speakers agreed on so many points so unlike many debates today it wasn’t like trying to bring black to white or white to black. There was careful consideration of the nuance, details and ramifications of the decisions being discussed. I’ll include my pretty full notes below but I thought I’d include a quick list of pros and cons. (These are as stated by the speakers – not my personal pros and cons.)

For the Merger:

• It’s a good way to get to 98% broadband coverage in the US in the next 5-6 years without government spending.
• T-Mobile will probably be sold anyways the parent company is no longer interested in the American market
• 4G is broadband; it is faster than most rural communities experience now

Against the Merger

• A merger will mean a loss of jobs. T-Mobile’s workforce is 48% minorities
• AT&T is not known for quality customer service while T-Mobile is the most low-income-friendly with prices and service locations
• 4G may be broadband, but access through a smartphone alone is not enough. You can’t fill out a college application on your smartphone. People need

Former Senator Rick Boucher –
Now heads up the Internet Innovation Alliance – they agree on nationwide universal broadband. It is achievable. (Universal however is 9% broadband deployment within 5 year period)

1. Get the FCC to reform USF. The US has highest telephone rate. SO the USF has worked in terms of getting landlines to rural areas. It makes sense to modify USF to allow it to be expended for broadband as well as telephone. Right now the providers are small rural telcos – if they could use funds for broadband, they would.
2. Get the Legislature to allow the FCC to confer incentive auctions. Smartphones have taken off hugely. We’ll need more spectrum to accommodate smartphones.
1. The FCC would encourage spectrum owners (TV air owners) to give it up for a portion of auction proceeds. There are urban, independent stations that will take advantage of the opportunity.
2. Enough stations have expressed interest to make it worth trying. It might happen this year. The Super Committee is looking into it.
3. Support the merger between AT&T & T-Mobile. We have a goal of 98% broadband coverage. AT&T says within 6 years they will cover 97%. We think we can make up the rest from USF reform & financial support.

Why is the merger good for consumers?

T-Mobile will be bought by someone. Deutsche Telkom owns it and wants to get out of the American market. Few upgrades have been made.

Verizon 4G is as fast as my connection at home. It can be a stable and independent platform for access. We may see people give up cable & DSL to go wireless on 4G as people have given up their landlines. AT&T has said they will deploy 4G.

AT&T says it will honor T-Mobile customers contracts for the duration of the contract.

AT&T will remove one carrier from the national table – but it’s not anti-competitive in that 1 of the largest 20 cities, there will still be 5 or more wireless providers from which to choose. In the other 2 cities the merger requirements may mean that T-Mobile is broken down and sold to others.

The current major spectrum holder is Sprint. They control about 30 percent of all spectrum. Then Verizon and then AT&T. TO remain competitive, AT&T needs more spectrum.

amalia deloney

I don’t work for AT&T in any way, shape or form.

We agree on the importance of broadband. The Center for Media Justice is a think tank that represents marginalized communities. We work with grassroots communities of color.

The Media Action Grassroots Network is made up of community-based organizations. We want to build media policy that’s people centered and place-based. Our top concerns:

• Internet Freedom (Net Neutrality)
• Universal Service Fund
• Involve din low cost programs
• Safelink (mobile/tracphone)
• AT&T T-Mobile
• Created video on Mo Mergers Mo Problems
• Minnesota is leading a voice against the merger

Broadband connectivity is essential for education, healthcare… For low-incomes folks, jobs is the top concern. You can only apply for jobs online. So that means the Rondo Library in St Paul opens up with a 3-hour wait for a computer.

Why don’t we like the merger?

• We think the merger is a jobs killer.
• T-Mobile has chosen to build out in marginalized areas. It is the cheapest option. So many people use it. Nationally 4% of T-Mobile’s workforce is a minority.
• AT&T is notorious for bad customer service.
• The merger will leave a duopoly in the industry – that will not be good for customer service for users.
• Real competition doesn’t really exist right now. In many places there is only 1-2 providers.
• Wireless access is essential – but you can’t fill out a college application on your smartphone. They need affordable prices, the need protective policies.
• Families are getting broadband through their wireless devices. Wireless access is essential – but you can’t fill out a college application on your smartphone. They need affordable prices, the need protective policies

We want reliable, affordable service from a corporation with a connection to the community. We want to be innovators, not just consumers.

Boucher –

AT&T has not widely deployed 4G yet. The fifth generation iPhone is coming out soon. (Hopefully this week.) Verizon has done a pretty good job of 4G deployment.

AT&T has pledged to retain all of the call center positions from AT&T and T-Mobile. They will need those call center operators to handle the subscribers. This is one of the fastest growing industries in the US.

CWA & ALFCIO have both endorse the merger. The claim that up to 96,000 jobs will be created.

The FCC has a low definition of broadband. What do you call broadband?

Boucher – 3G isn’t real broadband; 4G is. And AT&T is looking at 20 Mbps.

deloney – it depends. Symmetrical upload/download is necessary.

Question: 20 Mbps in many rural areas would be a step up. Is there a difference in impact between a low-income users in rural vs urban area?

deloney – generally no. There’s a false division between communities that are underserved and unserved – but we would group them together. You face issues of being left behind. It’s not that people don’t understand that they need broadband.

People need reliability & affordability. Competition helps. Maintains a low cost providers helps too. Options are important for consumer rights.

Question: Customers are fluid and growing. Congress gave broadcasters spectrum with the ideas that they might give it back.

Boucher – 8 years ago Congress decided to prepare a path to transition from analog to digital. SO 700 MHz spectrum was opened up. The big change was getting home owners a digital TV set (or convertor box). We loaned the spectrum to the broadcaster so that they could broadcast on analog and digital. About 3 years ago analog broadcasting stopped. There were subsidies to buy convertors.

We got the spectrum back and that’s where the 4G is coming from.

Sprint in the largest spectrum holder and they don’t use much of it now.

Isn’t it possible to get to 98% broadband in 5-6 years without the merger?

Boucher – no. There will be a requirement in the law to make them cover 98% in that timeframe. AT&T won’t do it in the timeframe without the merger.

Verizon might be better poised, but they will build in the cities first.

deloney – There’s a question of how AT&T spends money – such as lobbying and a multi-billion dollar ads.

There are innovative solutions – ILSR in MN talks about community-based broadband networks. We can open up the discussion to talk about community-based solutions. Now is a good time to look at what models in which we should invest.

Boucher – I supported the bill that would have allowed easier connection to community-based networks. About half the states have prohibitions of some sort of network communications.

There ought to be an expanded definition to lifelink & linkup to include broadband options.

First – the latest activity. On August 31, 2011, the Department of Justice filed an anti-trust lawsuit to block AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile. The Department of Justice explains their move…

The Department of Justice today filed a civil antitrust lawsuit to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile USA Inc. The department said that the proposed $39 billion transaction would substantially lessen competition for mobile wireless telecommunications services across the United States, resulting in higher prices, poorer quality services, fewer choices and fewer innovative products for the millions of American consumers who rely on mobile wireless services in their everyday lives.

The department’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to prevent AT&T from acquiring T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom AG.

“The combination of AT&T and T-Mobile would result in tens of millions of consumers all across the United States facing higher prices, fewer choices and lower quality products for mobile wireless services,” said Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole. “Consumers across the country, including those in rural areas and those with lower incomes, benefit from competition among the nation’s wireless carriers, particularly the four remaining national carriers. This lawsuit seeks to ensure that everyone can continue to receive the benefits of that competition.”

Reaction to that lawsuit has really cemented the pros and cons as well as friends and foes of the merger.

Who’s for the merger?

Other large tech companies have apparently rallied around the idea of the merger as a means to build a better network more quickly. WIRED reports…

Sadly, some of the nation’s biggest tech players rallied to AT&T’s defense. Facebook, Yahoo, and Microsoft, among others, filed a petition in support of the merger, buying into AT&T’s threat not to build out a nationwide 4G network unless it got to buy T-Mobile.

Some folks have used the merger as a jumping point to open the spectrum discussion. Jeff Kagan, from E-Commerce Times points out that the merger is just an attempt to get more spectrum – a resource in scarce supply, which the author suggests should be reallocated…

If we are to survive, we have to come up with a bold solution. A wider hose. Otherwise the entire industry will face the same problems AT&T has been dealing with in recent years. So one idea is to take the spectrum back and pool it into a large group. Let every carrier and handset maker access it all. That way if one band is blocked because of heavy usage, the phone and the network can simply use another band. Simple solution.

In a very backhanded way, CNN Money points out that the merger has the potential to save money.

On page 51 of a long filing with the FCC in support of the merger, AT&T did get around to describing how the deal would save it $3 billion a year starting three years after it was complete. One of the ways will be “optimizing” the combined company’s retail and distribution networks (a process that traditionally involves more firing than hiring).

Unfortunately this is sort of a double-edged sword at a time when what the economy is really screaming for is jobs from private business – not saving and downsizing. Also, AT&T is saying that the merger will create jobs…

If the deal is approved, AT&T today said that it will be able to “bring back” 5,000 call center jobs to the United States that are currently outsourced to other countries. In addition, the company said that it doesn’t anticipate any job losses for U.S.-based call center workers after the merger closes.

Who’s against the merger?

The Center for Media Justice calls the Department of Justice block a major victory…

“Blocking this merger is a major victory for communities of color, rural communities and America’s poor. The Justice Department has taken seriously our real concerns about higher prices, fewer choices and massive job loss. This is the best possible end to our August Month of Action Against the Merger. The people spoke, and the Justice Department listened.”

Some maintain that Sprint must be happy with the delay – but even more interesting it outlines some of the issues facing mobile industry these days – like smartphone relationships and 4G networks…

But the most pressing issue facing Sprint, the analysts say, is its need to build a fourth-generation, or 4G, wireless network

WIRED also maintains that T-Mobile customers are happy to see the block..

“I’m so happy that I don’t have to be an AT&T customer.”

Again this important factor here is in the implication that T-Mobile is friendlier to customers. The Legal Talk Network also made that assertion and part of the concern for folks who are worried is that service will be adversely effected with a merger. T-Mobile is called out as a “disruptive factor” in the industry in terms of providing lower costs that have an impact on the prices competitors can charge.

I’m not sure how the lawsuit will end up – it was interesting to get a glimpse of the Judge Huville, who is presiding over the case. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Midcontinent Communications is boosting broadband speeds for more than 250,000 customers in the Upper Midwest, including a top tier of 100 Megabits per second down and 15 Mbps up, and has added access to ESPN3.com online video service as part of the upgrade.

Not often I get to mention ESPN. The article goes on to talk about the services offered and the method…

The DOCSIS 3.0-based MidcoNet Xstream Wideband service is available in three new tiers of service: 100/15 Mbps; 50/10 Mbps; and 30/5 Mbps. Those replace the operator’s previous tiers of 50/5, 30/3 and 20/2.

The higher speeds were made possible by Midcontinent’s analog-reclamation project which freed up spectrum. The company said up to 300 Mbps now flows into individual neighborhoods. Midcontinent already offered the fastest Internet speeds in the three-state area, where 3 Mbps downstream is the average, according to the company.

The last time I reported anything on Midcontinent was in 2009 when they were beginning to serve Sabin Minnesota with 50 Mbps down and 5 up. They recently purchased systems in North Dakota and MN from US Cable and now report having 214,000 customers between the two states.

MIRC Digital Inclusion Curriculum
It’s been about a year since Blandin Foundation’s Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) began their ARRA-funded broadband adoption initiative. One byproduct of the program has been the development of a wide spectrum of digital inclusion curricula available for Minnesota residents, jobseekers and businesses. http://wp.me/p3if7-1gr

More About MIRC
In 2010, the FCC issued a national broadband plan that stated “Like electricity a century ago, broadband is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness and a better way of life.” While broadband internet access underlies the MIRC project, in reality broadband is only a tool to help create better communities. http://wp.me/p3if7-1fb

Universal Service Funds
The FCC is looking to restructure the Universal Service Funds (USF). IMPACT 20/20 (from NW Minnesota) recently published a background on USF that explains why residents should pay attention to this technical and political topic. http://wp.me/p3if7-1go Earlier this month, the Minnesota Telecommunications Association spoke to the Minnesota PUC about how decisions on the USF at the federal level may relate to the PUC and Minnesota residents. http://wp.me/p3if7-1fT

May 4 – TISP Forum
Wednesday May 4, The Telecommunications and Information Society Policy Forum will discuss Public Private Broadband Partnerships. Attendees will hear personal stories of how two private companies and two public entities are making their public private partnerships work. The panel will be moderated by Blandin Foundation’s Bernadine Joselyn and the event will include opening remarks from Minnesota Department of Commerce Commissioner Mark Rothman. http://wp.me/p3if7-1f8

Local Broadband News

Anoka County
Working on their ARRA-funded fiber network, Anoka County has shared the connectivity service agreement they are using with their communities and anchor institutions. http://wp.me/p3if7-1fy

Benton County
Telehealth programs are going strong with local MIRC partners Benton County as they work with Cybermation to put computers in homes with elderly residents to help them stay remotely connected to loved ones. http://wp.me/p3if7-1fj

Carver County
Carver County leaders meet to discuss broadband deployment and adoption, asking does broadband unite or divide us? http://wp.me/p3if7-1gd

Dakota County
Dakota County hosts a Broadband Forum where attendees focus on regional economic development and hear from local leaders in broadband use – from the healthcare, business and education sectors. http://wp.me/p3if7-1gg

Iron Range
Local journalist Aaron Brown speaks eloquently about the need for broadband adoption and deployment programs in Northern Minnesota. http://wp.me/p3if7-1fv

Lake, Lac qui Parle, Todd, Redwood, Cook, Sibley Counties and Windom
Minnesota Public Radio’s Level Ground profiles seven communities and their broadband efforts. http://wp.me/p3if7-1ga

Lake County
A study by Navigant Economics prices out the cost per household of bringing fiber to Lake County. http://wp.me/p3if7-1fX

Mountain Iron
Northeast Service Cooperative breaks ground on their ARRA-funded fiber project. http://wp.me/p3if7-1g8

Twin Cities
The University of Minnesota is hiring broadband apprentices to work on their ARRA-funded broadband adoption program. http://wp.me/p3if7-1gy

The Twin Cities is slated to get super-fast wireless service through new provider LightSquared, if LIghtSquared can get necessary approval for their technology. http://wp.me/p3if7-1gl

Voyagers National Park
AT&T’s request to build a 350-foot cellphone tower near Voyageurs National Park has been rejected. http://wp.me/p3if7-1gA

Winona
With MIRC funding, Project FINE has been able to offer broadband adoption and computer literacy programs to the new residents in their area, many of whom are learning English. http://wp.me/p3if7-1fn

Worthington
Senator Klobuchar praised the efforts of ARRA-funded Southwest Minnesota Broadband Group and their efforts to bring fiber to the area. http://wp.me/p3if7-1eN

The Worthington School District is going wireless, even opening up the network for student devices. It could open new doors for teaching. http://wp.me/p3if7-1eQ

(Many stories are gathered from local online newspaper. Unfortunately each newspaper has a different policy in regards to archive news and therefore we cannot guarantee access to all articles cited.)

Events

May 4 – TISP Forum http://tinyurl.com/44b7uy9

June 7 – Minneapolis CIO Executive Summit – http://tinyurl.com/6zycaoj

July 19-20 – Minnesota Cable Communications Association Annual Meeting http://tinyurl.com/5ta73y3

Looking for more events? Check out TechDotMN’s calendar http://tech.mn/events/. Many events are based in the Twin Cities but it is a comprehensive list. (If you have an upcoming event, consider submitting it.)

Coleman’s Corner

The Connect Minnesota maps and reports http://connectmn.org/ are opening the eyes of many across the state, especially those at the bottom of the connectivity lists. Some of those counties may be on the way to solving their problems through stimulus funds – Cook, Lac qui Parle and Lake. Others are just beginning the task to ensure countywide compliance with the 10-20 Mb state broadband goal. (A side note: for a while, I was defaulting to the lower speed, but now I am promoting 15 Mb by 2015 as the goal).

Sibley County has completed a countywide fiber to the premise feasibility study. I am working on initial assessments and discussions with Redwood and Kanabec Counties. Todd County is also in on the pursuit of quality broadband, in their case, reportedly at the urging of the county cattleman’s association. Even cows want fiber, I guess!

Just as the recent MN Rural Partners report http://wp.me/p3if7-1dk indicates that the metro has significant interdependence with greater Minnesota, rural community leaders are recognizing that it is not enough for county seat cities to be well-connected. Last week at a community meeting in Mora, county seat of Kanabec County, the banker, the hospital and the schools all indicated the need to connect to consumers in the outlying areas. The hospital representative told of the need for quality broadband in rural areas so that prospective physicians can enjoy a full range of housing choices when comparing Mora to other rural locations, all of which are trying to attract new doctors.

We have had great representation from area telecommunications companies, large and small, in both Redwood and Kanabec County meetings. There is a shared understanding by all that strictly private market forces cannot finance new rural telecommunications networks. High costs, low revenues and short investment horizons combine as a triple whammy. Absent new federal broadband stimulus funds, it will be up to these rural counties to identify and implement models that work!

Bill Coleman helps communities make the connection between telecommunications and economic development. As principal in Community Technology Advisors http://tinyurl.com/3f4dx7g for ten years, he assists community, foundation and corporate clients develop and implement programs of broadband infrastructure investment and technology promotion and training. Bill is working with the Blandin Foundation on the MIRC Initiative http://tinyurl.com/2c6mhh4, Community Broadband Resource Program http://tinyurl.com/cseu7e and other broadband projects.

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We are using a comprehensive framework based on the Intelligent Community Forum strategy that focuses on: broadband, digital inclusion, knowledge workers, marketing/advocacy and innovation. Within this framework each community is funding local projects to meet the local needs while statewide partners have been creating tools, such as digital inclusion curriculum, to support the local efforts. Collectively we’ve created tools to meet residents wherever they are on the digital literacy spectrum.

Digital Inclusion

Statewide project partners, PCs for People have been busy refurbishing recycled computers for folks who have never had a computer in their home. Last quarter they gave out a record-breaking 809 computers to proud owners across the state. (About 300 of those computers went to homes in MIRC communities.) Some new computer owners have taken to the computers easily, some have kids to help guide them, but for folks who need a little hand holding, the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) has created computer classes.

DEED began by using standards developed by the Digital Literacy Center to help determine what digital literacy skills they should strive to teach; they have developed online courses that start at the beginning (see video). They have a series of scenario-based learner-driven training modules that follows our hero Olivia as she strives to gain computer skills required to get a job and conquer other life challenges as they arise. These courses will soon be available through area Workforce Centers, community colleges, libraries and other locations. (As you watch the video you may notice the slow pacing to accommodate low English and literacy levels.)

Knowledge Workers

The Minnesota Learning Commons picks up the baton from DEED with their Knowledge Workers curriculum, which includes training in career planning, entrepreneurship, research, networking, problem solving, critical thinking and innovation. The courses are computer-based but will be presented in a classroom setting so that students have a supportive environment to build skills to take future online courses. The goal is to develop a workforce that has modern technology skills required to support the 21st century company so that Minnesota communities can compete with global counterparts for attracting businesses to the area. The courses are available through the local community colleges.

Marketing/Advocacy

Along with training residents, MIRC also supports local businesses with ecommerce and ebusiness training. The University of Minnesota Extension offers a range of classes from Doing Business Online to Using Social Media in Business. (Some classes are offered with Spanish interpreters.) In four months, they have conducted 66 workshops in 18 communities, contacting 597 businesses and more than 1,000 individuals. As local reporter, Dave Peters points out, “This is the flip side of the federal stimulus money.” Much of the stimulus funding has gone to infrastructure. The MIRC project focuses on usage and adoption. In this context, teaching local businesses how to use broadband to grow.

The Minnesota Renewable Energy Marketplace (MNREM) has also been working this local businesses – especially renewable energy businesses and businesses, such as manufacturers, who support renewable businesses. MNREM has hosted several webinars on ebusiness topics providing high level instruction to decision makers and business owners. MNREM will be working in local communities to get local ebusiness specialists to work with businesses to help them make better use of broadband.

We’re proud of the lessons we’re teaching and learning. Our hope and expectation is that the skills that beneficiaries gain through the training will outlive the project itself and that even the curriculum will live on to teach folks throughout Minnesota and beyond how to use a computer to learn, work and live. In some ways much of our work is done – then next phase is developing relationships to help spread the word and use of the tools we have created.

Steve Alexander provides a nice description of LightSquared’s technology plans…

The network would combine two communications satellites and 40,000 earthbound antennas to cover 92 percent of the nation’s land area by the end of 2015. That’s more land coverage than any other wireless provider offers consumers. But the quality wouldn’t be uniform — the antennas would provide fast 4G data speeds in cities, while the satellites would deliver slower speeds in rural areas.

My first frustration is the two-tiered service for urban/rural customers – but it is in alignment with the National Broadband Plan so I won’t belabor my issues here. Also there seem to be bigger concerns about the technology, as Inside GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) indicates…

In January, however, the FCC’s International Bureau, acting under “delegated authority” and after an abbreviated public notice process, granted an exclusive waiver to LightSquared to build a dense nationwide network — up to 40,000 stations — of high-powered ATC transmitters.

The coalition and many GPS manufacturers and users believe that the 1,500-watt power of the LightSquared signal — a billion times stronger than GPS — will saturate the RF front-ends of receivers, causing them to fail.

Apparently there are several independent tests being conducting to assess the validity of those concerns. Results are expected by the end of May.

There are also questions in terms of the business plan (as described by the Minneapolis Star Tribune)…

LightSquared’s business model is just as unorthodox. It would be the nation’s first exclusively wholesale wireless network, selling to retailers such as Best Buy. The retailers could then compete with traditional cell providers Verizon Wireless, Sprint and AT&T.

The concern is the expense of building such a large network from scratch. Can this business withstand the setup costs. Also time is not on their side. As Urgent Communications (trade journal of the International Wireless Communication Expo) reports…

But the FCC also is under pressure to find more spectrum to feed the explosive demand of mobile broadband services, and it wants to see more broadband deployed. LightSquared has a tight rollout deadline. As a condition of its waiver, the operator must cover 100 million people by the end of 2012, 145 million people by the end of 2013 and at least 260 million people by the end of 2015.

So right now it seems as if some things are up in the air. Almost every article I read talks about the gamble that LightSquared is taking and credits/blames the Minnesota-born financial backer Philip Falcone…

The hedge fund manager who made billions betting against subprime mortgages is engaging in another high-risk wager: that his telecommunications company LightSquared will be able to launch a next-generation U.S. wireless network.